ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 If the Anaheim Ducks were supposed to simply be interesting foils for the Edmonton Oilers, they didn\u2019t get the memo.<\/p>\n
Beckett Sennecke and Leo Carlsson scored goals 42 seconds apart early in the third period to give the Ducks a two-goal lead, and they went on to a 7-4 victory on Friday night to\u00a0take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.<\/p>\n
Anaheim\u2019s skilled young stars have come to the forefront in their first playoff series, and Sennecke and Carlsson sparked a four-goal third period. Game 4 is Sunday in Anaheim.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a really good team,\u201d said Mikael Granlund, who had a goal and two assists. \u201cThe whole team played really good tonight. But at the same time, we\u2019re in Game 3. We just got to move forward and get ready for Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sennecke\u2019s wrist shot past Oilers goalie Connor Ingram off the rush gave the 20-year-old his first playoff goal. Carlsson, the Ducks\u2019 21-year-old star No. 1 center, then gave Anaheim a 5-3 lead with a backhand finish off an odd-man rush with linemate Troy Terry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hockey, it\u2019s a sport,\u201d said Oilers forward Kasperi Kapanen. \u201cMistakes are going to happen. Yet again, I\u2019m going to tell you we\u2019ve got to be more responsible with the puck. Those two goals that they scored in the third period kind of took a little wind out of our sails. Yeah, it\u2019s disappointing, because I truly feel that we kind of gave them this win tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connor McDavid got his first two points of the series for Edmonton, and pulled the Oilers within 5-4 with a third-period power-play goal. But the Ducks responded and put the game away, as grinding winger Jeffrey Viel added an insurance goal and Jackson LaCombe scored into an empty net.<\/p>\n
Pumped by a roaring Honda Center crowd experiencing its first playoff game in eight years, the Ducks fed off that with a scorching first period powered by their skating. They forced Ingram to make 10 early saves.<\/p>\n
Edmonton\u2019s Vasily Podkolzin continued his strong series with a successful wrist shot past Ducks netminder Lukas Dostal at the 13:12 mark to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead. Mason McTavish evened the game with a tip of rookie Tyson Hinds\u2019 point shot, and then Granlund gave Anaheim its first lead at 2-1, punching in a power-play goal just 1:27 later.<\/p>\n
The back-and-forth nature of the first two games continued in Game 3. Kapanen got his third goal of the series when he fired in a shot off a Leon Draisaitl feed early in the second. Just 1:42 later, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put Edmonton back on top 3-2 after Dostal had trouble securing the puck on Evan Bouchard\u2019s point shot.<\/p>\n
Granlund continued to make a big impact as the second period progressed. The veteran, in his first season with the Ducks, managed to find Killorn with a pass down low for a 3-3 tie. He also nearly put Anaheim back in the lead by swatting in an airborne puck but officials ruled it was done with a high stick, which a video review confirmed, keeping the game tied going into the exciting third period.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd was outstanding,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. \u201cI thought we had a great start to the game. Did a lot of good things most of the night. It\u2019s fun seeing the crowd get rewarded with a win. It\u2019s been a long time coming.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tough times for McDavid<\/p>\n
This is quickly becoming the worst playoff series of McDavid\u2019s career. Yes, he picked up his first points in three games against Anaheim with a power-play strike and secondary assist on the goal scored by Nugent-Hopkins, but those came after a first period in which the Oilers failed to even register one even-strength shot attempt with McDavid on the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought, like our team, he wasn\u2019t very good in the first period,\u201d Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. \u201cI thought he had his best period in the second. He had some great scoring chances, some odd-man rushes and he got a goal and an assist tonight. He got a goal on the power play, which is good for us. But I think he\u2019s getting better and that\u2019s what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n
McDavid finished the game with a minus-4 rating and is minus-6 in the series. <\/p>\n
The game\u2019s best player has looked nothing like his normal self. Not only did he nullify an Oilers power play in the third period by taking an egregious cross-checking penalty against Tyson Hinds, he was well behind the play when Sennecke put the Ducks ahead for good earlier in the period.<\/p>\n
While it would surprise no one if it\u2019s later revealed that McDavid is weathering an injury, especially after briefly leaving Game 2 with what looked like a rolled right ankle, he still managed to take a regular load of shifts on Friday and played 23 minutes, 50 seconds. And at the end of a night when McDavid was among his team\u2019s worst performers in expected goals, it was difficult not to look back on pregame comments from Knoblauch about McDavid and view them as ominous: \u201cHe\u2019s always flying around. Very often, even if he does have something, he still looks like he\u2019s flying around.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oilers out of sorts<\/p>\n
Whatever is (or isn\u2019t) going on with McDavid, when Anaheim opened the third period with two quick goals to take a 5-3 lead, it felt like a direct result of Edmonton only having one functional line \u2014 and of Knoblauch\u2019s efforts to kick-start McDavid in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n
Through two periods, Draisaitl, Podkolzin and Kapanen made up the lone Edmonton trio that was winning its minutes. They held a 14-9 attempt advantage, a 66-percent expected goal share and a 1-0 goal lead, courtesy of Kapanen, who scored to tie the game 2-2 at 3:57 of the second period.<\/p>\n
To start the third, though, Knoblauch went with Draisaitl, McDavid and Zach Hyman, and immediately paid the price. Moments after McDavid got away with interfering with Killorn, Sennecke was sprung to make it 4-3. Forty-two seconds later, with that same group again in Anaheim\u2019s zone, Draisaitl lunged at an errant pass from Mattias Ekholm that landed on Terry\u2019s stick and started a two-on-one. Carlsson backhanded Terry\u2019s pass past Ingram to make it 5-3.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously not good enough from us tonight by no means,\u201d Ekholm said. \u201cWe scrambled to at least have a chance going into the third, but obviously mistakes on mistakes. So not our best tonight, for sure. I mean, we\u2019ll have to take responsibility for that. It starts with me. It starts with the guys that I\u2019m out there with and it goes on. We\u2019ve just got to make sure we value the defensive side of the puck. I mean it\u2019s going to be hard winning games when you let in six or seven, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlikely boost for Anaheim<\/p>\n
Anaheim\u2019s power play continued to stay hot. Granlund\u2019s 17th career playoff goal gave the Ducks a 2-1 lead in the opening period and their fourth power-play goal in their first seven opportunities.<\/p>\n
Coming into the playoffs, the Ducks were 23rd in the league with an 18.6 percent success rate and 25th with 6.47 goals per 60. That was step up from last season with first-year assistant coach Jay Woodcroft \u2013 the one-time Edmonton bench boss \u2013 but still a disappointment considering the amount of offensive skill Anaheim has. But it is clicking at the right time. Terry had a power-play goal in Game 1, while Killorn and Cutter Gauthier scored in Game 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re just connected really well,\u201d LaCombe said. \u201cI think our work ethic\u2019s been really good for us on the power play. Just recovering pucks. The little things that I think we needed to do a better job after from the regular season, we\u2019re doing. Getting good screens. It\u2019s working out really well for us right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust more chemistry. I think our units (have) gotten more consistent, more time together. We kind of get used to each other\u2019s tendencies and, like I said, our work ethic\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ducks flying early<\/p>\n
The first period was entertaining. It was eventful. It was certainly interesting. It was not, however, competitive. For the first time in the series, the Ducks came out of the gates as the better team, and they did to the point that, when Podkolzin put the Oilers up 1-0 with a bullet wrister that slipped through three bodies, Ingram\u2019s glove and a goal post, it felt almost unfair \u2014 and like a major missed opportunity for Anaheim. When Podkolzin scored, the Ducks held an edge in expected goals by nearly 2.0, a massive gap after just 13:12 of play.<\/p>\n
Credit Anaheim for keeping the pressure dialed up. They continued using their legs to beat Edmonton in puck battles and sharpened their game enough to take a 2-1 lead on goals by McTavish, who tipped a Drew Hellesone shot past Ingram, and Granlund, who scored on a rebound that Ingram booted into the empty slot.<\/p>\n
By the end of the first 20 minutes, Anaheim held a 28-10 edge in blocked attempts and a 20-7 edge in shots. All they had to show for it, though, was a one-goal lead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re rolling a little bit, right?\u201d Ekholm said. \u201cThat\u2019s usually the team that rolls are the ones that\u2019re going to look fast, too. I know it\u2019s more on us than maybe on them, for the guys in here. We know what we\u2019ve got to do. We\u2019ve got to execute at a higher level. We haven\u2019t brought close to our best yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coincidentally, ahead of Game 3, asked about \u201chigh-event\u201d hockey in the first two games, Knoblauch disagreed with the characterization. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of goals on both sides, and I guess maybe the quality of chances have been good, but I think both teams have been doing a pretty good job of not forcing things,\u201d Knoblauch said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it\u2019s high-event, you usually see a lot of high-risk, high-danger, high-reward kind of plays on the attack, on the rush, at the blue line. So that kind of tells me that it\u2019s been a little tighter defensively than maybe these games have been in the past, with Edmonton and Anaheim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keeping it clean<\/p>\n
This series has been full of goals and drama. Other than two frustration-induced scrums late in Game 3, it\u2019s been lacking in the kind of histrionics that have occurred in other playoff matchups. There hasn\u2019t been that kind of bad blood that has leaked out in the Canadiens-Lightning and Flyers-Penguins tussles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the series so far has been physical, but clean,\u201d Viel said. \u201cAs a team, we\u2019re going to stick up for each other and we\u2019re always going to be ready. Obviously, these are two offensive-minded teams. I think both teams are trying to not get the other one on the power play. That\u2019s part of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you know as the series grows here and battles happen, I think it\u2019s going to get even more physical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both the Oilers and Ducks have been mindful of any lingering extracurricular action that could result in an extra power play. Edmonton had the NHL\u2019s best power play during the regular season. Anaheim has been the team that is capitalizing in the series.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s heated out there,\u201d Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. \u201cThere\u2019s for sure a lot of passion out there. But I think these are just two teams that are trying to play. We\u2019re trying to be very cognizant of the special teams battle and try to keep the game at five-on-five and they\u2019re probably doing the same thing. When you try to do that, you don\u2019t want to be in and out of the box all night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nurse said he figures the teams are more focused on playing to their strengths instead of being concerned with throwing the other off their game. But he added that a series tends to become more physical and nastier as it moves along.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know a lot of teams, it\u2019s part of their identity to really muck it up and probably more of getting the other team distracted,\u201d Knoblauch said. \u201cI think this series has been more of let\u2019s play our game. I don\u2019t think any team feels like they\u2019re a heavy underdog that they have to disrupt the other team\u2019s rhythm and flow. I think both teams have just been focused on playing their game the best they can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANAHEIM, Calif. \u2014 If the Anaheim Ducks were supposed to simply be interesting foils for the Edmonton Oilers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":559088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[233,146,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-559087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-anaheim-ducks","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116465074403642978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/559088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}